Polish, Hungarian and Romanian Women Farmers Visit Serbia
June 2022, Serbia
Ama – Center for the Care of People and Nature www.amacentar.org, office@amacentar.org

During their third gathering within the Women on Rural Areas Project (WORA), the participants from Poland, Hungary and Romania had an opportunity to visit Serbia, with the topic of the meeting being Internet Safety.

In late May, the women engaged in rural tourism in Poland, Hungary and Romania visited Serbia. Ten female participants of the WORA Project, together with their Serbian hosts, gathered in Seča Reka, West Serbia, during a two-day working visit.

On the first day of their visit, the participants were informed on the project activities completed so far and with the general framework of operations of Ama Center, the Serbian partner in this international project. In the next part of the programme, the participants presented their agricultural and tourist households, talked about why they have chosen this profession, the challenges they face and how they tackle them. The second segment of the presentation dealt with the role of the Internet in the daily life and development of rural tourist households, emphasising the Internet safety. The participants shared their experiences on website creation and management, as well as on the account management both on social networks and on specialised portals for sale of services and products offered by rural households. The participants were introduced to the most recent developments in the field of professional usage of the Internet in their future work.

During the afternoon, the participants had an opportunity to learn about the experiences shared with them by local women’s organisation fighting for a better position of women, and successful stories of women who stayed in or returned to the villages:

“Vardanke” Women’s Association gathers about fifteen mostly young mums from the village of Varda near Kosjerić, West Serbia, who, wishing to improve the position of women and assist the elderly and the children in their village, established the Association in early 2020. With their vision of development of the Varda village, they made it possible to unite the local self-government, the villagers and their own families and to implement many successful initiatives: they managed to open a kindergarten and a half-day childcare, raise funds for a boy’s surgery, develop a village park and organise distribution of gift packages to the village children.

Farmer’s Association of Subotica has been defending the interests of Subotica and Vojvodina in Serbia and abroad since 1995, with the aim of exchanging experience and encouraging development and economic relations. They say about themselves that they represent the farmers before those holding power in their hands.

The second day of the gathering was booked for visits and introduction to local households and their offer:

Green Household “Bugarinović” has been engaged in organic vegetable production for several generations, driven by the idea of leaving the healthiest possible nature to future generations. Their production is mostly done in high tunnels in Sevojno, West Serbia. They work as Green Household “Bugarinović” since the spring of 2016, when the name was chosen by family vote.

Radojka Mihailović from Seča Reka village, near Kosjerić, a mother of four, has been successfully producing fruit juices for three years. She manages a large raspberry plantation, which gave her the idea to build cold storage for her own needs and start the juice production. She presented her offer to the participants, as well as the full process of production “from the field to the table”.

The participants also visited Tijana Marić, who returned to the village from Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, wishing to renew the growing of a heirloom maize variety. She also renewed the family watermill which in a short time became local tourist attraction under the name “Grandpa’s Watermill”, where the visitors can buy freshly milled flour.

The day ended with a visit to Ethno Village Gostoljublje, a tourist complex covering twelve hectares of hills near the town of Mionica, on the southern side of Divčibare. There are eight wooden cabins (vayats) for guests, located at 600 metres above the sea. The farm manages some 800 plum trees and offers home-made plum rakija and jams, as well as honey, fruit juices and preserves and other products. The complex also includes a domestic animals farm. This family complex is owned by women and gathers smaller households from nearby, offering to the guests a rich and diverse offer of home-made food.

As the hosts of the event, Janković Lodgings and Nana’s House in Seča Reka made this WORA gathering something special.
WORA Project for women in rural areas (ICT for Women on Rural Areas) aims at the exchange of practical experience among partners involved in educational activities in rural areas. The project partners are AgriNatura (Poland), Kislépték (Hungary), EcoRuralis (Romania) and Ama Centar (Serbia), with the support of EU Erasmus+ programme.